Brandon Routh has admitted he is hoping for a more action-packed return as Superman when he dons the cape to play the man of steel again.

Shooting is set to begin on a sequel to 2006's Superman Returns early next year and Routh, who drew acclaim for his dignified performance as Kal-El in Bryan Singer's film, has said improvements could certainly be made when the Krypton-native returns to the screen.

Talking to ComingSoon.net while promoting his new film Lie to Me, Routh stressed that both he and audiences are waiting for Superman "to actually be able to lay a punch on someone or something".

"I was filming and I thought, 'I haven't really hit anything. I feel like I'm going to need to let some of this anger out'," he said.

"So I'm happy that I think that's going to be a central part of the sequel, getting a good villain that we can actually have physical altercations with."

Routh revealed that Singer is planning to produce a script for the next Superman film - thought to be called Man of Steel - once post-production has finished on his historical drama Valkyrie, and said also said he hopes for a more human angle to be added to the sequel.

"I'd like more humour from Clark [Kent] or just more of Clark and Jimmy [Olsen]. A little bit more of Lois [Lane] and Clark, how we used to see them, a bit more of buddies," he explained.

"Perhaps things will be smoothed over with Superman and Lois and she can afford to be a little bit nicer to Clark.

"I think that's something that people want to see and those are some of the great moments from previous Superman films."

A report at Boston.com indicates that John Williams may be returning to the world of Superman to compose the score for the next Superman movie.

Williams, now 76, was conductor of the Pops from 1980 to 1993. According to industry reports, he remains a busy man, with soundtracks for "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," "Jurassic Park IV," and "Superman: Man of Steel" all scheduled for his touch.

Unless John Ottman was otherwise occupied, I find it hard to believe that he would not score the sequel to "Superman Returns" as he was not only the composer on that movie but the editor as well, and is a long-time collaborator with director Bryan Singer.

I would love to see the whole death and rebirth of SUperman be done on the big screen, with Super baby as Kor put it being involved, I think that could put some butts in the seats and also make it a huge box office draw!

on a side note I wouldnt mind maybe as a 4th Batman sequel seeing the Knightfall Saga in Batman movies

Back in the 90s, Burton wanted to make a Superman movie based on the "death and return of" comics. It was going to be a gothic mess and people think Superman Returns was bad. This would have destroyed the story completely. They even had Superman making weapons out of the S on his chest. It would turn into an axe other things. Sounds kinda cool, but it isn't Superman. Here are a couple of sketches of ideas

you got 20 minutes, you should see the video below. It is writer/director Kevin Smith telling his story about how he was involved with a Superman movie project during the 90s. It is a very interesting story and a very good thing that this movie wasn't made. TPTB wanted a Superman movie where Superman doesn't have the tights and doesn't fly. They were even wanting Sean Penn as Superman! It's really interesting, and you can see it below.

ZeeNews.com reports that Bryan Singer may have offered Indian actress Priyanka Chopra a role in the sequel to "Superman Returns".

Priyanka Chopra is likely to play Superman's love interest in the flick's upcoming sequel.
According to our sources, Priyanka has been offered the role of Superman's leading lady in the latest sequel and she has almost given her final nod though the official statement is yet to be released.

Speaking to Spicezee, a source said, "The filmmakers had been looking for an Indian face for quite long as the role is of an Indian scientist. When they came to know of Priyanka shooting in the US for Dostana, the director of Superman went to the shoot to judge her work."

Impressed by the sizzling beauty, Priyanka was offered the role. However, there is no official word out as yet.

indeed, she is very attractive. A lot of fans are wondering if Superman needs another love interest besides Lois. In the end, won't he just end up with her anyway? I guess they just want to keep the storyline going with Lois married to Cyclops. At least Priyanka is a lot better looking than Mariel Hemingway, who tried to be the love interest of Superman on Superman IV.

I have been thinking recently about how on Superman Returns, we find out that Superman has a son. I wonder if he was inspired by Chris Kent ?

In an interview with MTV.com, Will Smith jokes about why the role of Hancock suits him better than playing Superman...

"The last 'Superman' I got offered," Will Smith revealed recently, reminiscing about the time he passed up the "Superman Returns" role that eventually went to Brandon Routh, "the script came, and I was like, 'There is no way I'm playing Superman!' Because I had already done Jim West [of 'Wild Wild West'], and you can't be messing up white people's heroes in Hollywood!"
Laughing, the king of the 4th of July weekend added, "You mess up white people's heroes in Hollywood, you'll never work in this town again!"

Now, instead of taking up residence in the Fortress of Solitude, Will Smith has a park bench. Instead of blue tights, he's wearing shorts and a tattered knit cap. He still gets to stop bullets with his skin, fly through the air and engage in his own Man of Steel heroics - but when Hancock goes dark, he makes Christopher Reeve's "Superman III" bar scene look like a "Teletubbies" rerun.

That has always been the ultimate question, would an African American Superman work? I'm sure it would find an audience. The way I see it, Kal-El isn't from Earth, so he can be any color he wants. The problem with that is that you would have to change one of the most basic things about Superman that hasn't changed in 70 years. On the other hand, Dean Cain did a terrific Superman and he is part Japanese among other things.

Newsarama.com has posted an article and aerial photo of the Superman Celebration's "Largest Gathering of People Dressed as Superman" world record, with an interesting angle on how the record was achieved.

The minimum necessary was 100 people and they had to wear authorized Superman costumes. No red towels for a cape with a hand-drawn "S" was permitted. The Guinness folks are a might fussy. And it had to be a SuperMAN costume, no SuperGIRL costumes were allowed.
The registration started at 3 p.m. with the final event scheduled for 5 p.m. At 3 the folks showed up and had their costumes scrutinized. Like some Superman story from the mid-1950s, the town was populated with fat Supermen, skinny Supermen, Supermen old, young, men and women, boys and girls.

But there were not enough of them. By Sunday, a lot of people had left already. Around 4 p.m. Jamie was told that only 68 people had signed up.

"We wanted to break the record, but we were coming up short and there were no more costumes for sale anywhere," he said.

I'll upload the pic when I get home for those that are curious to see it. It's pretty cool, may make it my wallpaper for my computer

Ilya Salkind, who co-produced "Superman: The Movie", "Superman II", Superman III", "Supergirl", "Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut" and the four-season syndicated TV show "The Adventures of Superboy", contacted me this week to alert Superman fans to a growing problem in the Superman collectibles market.

Salkind has recently become aware that Superboy and Superman costumes are being sold at auction houses and auction sites that may either be stolen property from the Warner vaults or completely phony reproductions. Salkind explained that, in certain cases, he's been told the costumes come with certificates of authenticity forged with Salkind's own signature.

Salkind is considering his legal rights and how best to halt these unauthorized sales of what are at best stolen property and at worst complete fakes. Salkind believes, based on the numbers of Superman suits and Superboy suits made in total (excluding "Superman IV: The Quest for Peace" which was not a Salkind production), up to 90% of the Superman and Superboy costumes being offered for sale may be fakes.

On a related note, Salkind said he has no definitive information on when seasons two through four of "The Adventures of Superboy" will be released on DVD. However, he said he has a "good feeling" that Warners will continue with the "Superboy" DVDs after "Smallville" goes off the air.

Krypton exploded in 1948, why does Jor-El tell his son, now eighteen at the Fortress of Solitude "by that reckoning, I would have been dead for many thousands of your years." If Superman was born just before Krypton explodes, takes three years for him to arrive on Earth (1951). When he turns 18 (in 1966) he discovers the secrets of the green crystal. Jor-El should have said our years.

When Jor-El says to Clark "I would have been dead for many thousands of your years" it is not a blooper. The line references an aspect of Einstein's theory of relativity. Simply put, time is not a constant factor when the speed of light is involved. And we can safely assume that Kryptonian technology can build a craft which travels at the speed of light.

Time is altered much like sound waves are altered when the source of the sound is moving. For example, if you are standing on a street corner and a car passes by while blowing its horn, the horn makes a noise very different from the noise it makes while the car is not moving. The noise is different because the sound waves are "distorted." The same is true for time. If an astronaut leaves Earth in a spacecraft and travels at the speed of light for one year, when he returns to Earth he is one year older but about 87 years or so have passed on Earth. Time has been "distorted." So when traveling across several galaxies as young Kal-El did, it is very possible for time to be distorted into "many thousands of your years."

Published by Jennifer Vineyard on Monday, August 11, 2008 at 12:15 pm.

On the one hand, you’ve got “Batman Begins” and “The Dark Knight.” On the other, “Superman Returns.” So if you’re Warner Bros., what do you do to revitalize your other superhero? We asked a few comic book writers who know the Man of Steel best.

“‘Superman Returns’ didn’t work for a lot of reasons,” Grant Morrison said.

“I so wanted that movie to work,” said Mark Waid, “but every choice they made in that movie was wrong. If you’re making the movie in a vacuum, and there will be no other Superman movies ever again, go ahead and give him a son. But otherwise, that’s a staggeringly awful idea. What are you going to do next? Either the kid has to be a part of his life, or get superpowers, which no one wants to see. I want to go to them and say, ‘What were you thinking?’”

“The idea was to make an American Christ figure, but what they centered on was his weakness,” Morrison said. “They made him more a lamb of God, rather than give us a real powerful Superman. They had too many scenes where he’s being kicked to the floor, and that’s not Superman. Superman would get up and fight.”

So these comics book writers are getting up and fighting too. Both Morrison and Geoff Johns have pitched the film studio on how to reboot Superman — properly reboot him, as if “Superman Returns” didn’t even happen.

“‘The Hulk’ has proven the audience will forgive you and let you redo the franchise,” Waid said. “You can reboot from scratch.”

Morrison’s idea was a more “tight and concise” take on his “All-Star Superman,” so you’d see Superman address his mortality. And Waid suggests they take a look at his hard reboot, “Superman: Birthright.” But Brad Meltzer also has an idea that could work as the basis for the character, based on research for his upcoming “Book of Lies.”

“Superman is a character more recognizable than Abraham Lincoln or Mickey Mouse,” Meltzer said. “But no one knows crap about Mickey Mouse. He’s a symbol. Understanding a soul is much harder. So don’t treat him like a walking American flag.”

To understand Superman, Meltzer says, you have to know why Superman was created in the first place — because a young Jerry Siegel’s father was shot and killed in 1932 (a fact first uncovered by Gerard Jones in “Men of Tomorrow: Geeks, Gangsters and the Birth of the Comic Book”).

“Superman was created not because America is the greatest country on earth, not because Moses came to save us from Krypton, but because a little boy lost his father,” Meltzer said. “In his first appearances, he couldn’t fly. He didn’t have X-ray vision. He was only bulletproof. So Superman’s not a character built out of strength, but out of loss.”

“When you hear that, it puts on a whole new spin on Superman and his origins,” Waid said. “The understanding was that Batman was born out of traged and Superman out of hope and aspiration, and it turns out that it’s about not wanting to lose your loved ones. That’s critical, and it means that we can connect with him. He’s not an untouchable character. Bad things still happen to him. His father passes away, and his powers can’t save him.”

And even if Superman still seems like too much of a Boy Scout, we’re supposed to be identifying with Clark Kent anyway. “Everybody knows what it’s like to see the pretty girl and think, ‘If only she could see me for who I really was,’” Waid said. “Past the glasses and acne or whatever. But he has to hide, and half his co-workers don’t even know his name. That’s a critical part, too.”

“It is so much deeper than, ‘He’s an alien with superpowers,’” Meltzer said. “I never wanted to write a Superman movie before, but I do now. I understand what Superman is now.”

The Wall Street Journal has posted an article that reveals that the Superman franchise is confirmed to be rebooting with the news of Warner Brothers' new film strategy, which will include the release of another Batman film, a restart to the Superman franchise, and two new DC character films.

Warner Bros. also put on hold plans for another movie starring multiple superheroes -- known as "Batman vs. Superman" -- after the $215 million "Superman Returns," which had disappointing box-office returns, didn't please executives. "'Superman' didn't quite work as a film in the way that we wanted it to," says Warner Bros. Pictures Group President Jeff Robinov. "It didn't position the character the way he needed to be positioned." "Had 'Superman' worked in 2006, we would have had a movie for Christmas of this year or 2009," he adds. "But now the plan is just to reintroduce Superman without regard to a Batman and Superman movie at all."

Warner Home Video held their annual Home Theater Forum chat regarding television shows and animation on DVD and several Superman projects were asked about. The Superman Homepage's Barry Freiman participated in the latter half of the chat during which two Superman questions were raised.
The first concerned whether there were any plans for season sets for early seasons of the Super Friends or for a complete series set for Superman: The Animated Series (as is being done later this year with Batman). Warners answer on both was: "We're looking at both."

The next question also was about the DCU: "Speaking of DC Superheroes, will we be seeing the late 60's Batman Filmation cartoons [or] any more New Adventures of Superman sets." Warners answer was quite promising: "Rest assured our goal is to release the entire DC Comics library at some point."

Finally, after the forum ended, the Superman Homepage asked TVShowsonDVD owner Gord Lacey if anything had come up about the second season of the live-action Adventures of Superboy and, unfortunately, Lacey reported that Warners indicated there are no plans for further Superboy DVD releases at this time